All Is Lost

Mar 18, 2009 — Writer, critic, and film lecturer Teruyo Nogami also served as one of Akira Kurosawa’s principal assistants. Hired as script supervisor on 1950’s Rashomon, Nogami went on to work on all of Kurosawa’s subsequent films, later chronicling their unique relationship in...

Jul 16, 2008 — The locations for many of Ingmar Bergman’s most dramatically spare films have existed for so long in moviegoers’ minds as stark black-and-white dream states that to walk through them in living, vibrant color is truly transformative. Imagine the harsh, pebbled...

Sep 3, 2007 — I’m on a flight back from the Telluride Film Festival and two and a half great days in the mountains. Telluride has been an important festival for Criterion and Janus for years. It’s a great opportunity to mingle with filmmakers...

Nov 23, 2006 — I first met Robert Altman in person in 1999, when I was producing a series of video introductions featuring contemporary directors discussing their favorite Janus films. Altman was the first Criterion director to respond to our request. We had sent...

Sep 19, 2005 — Jane Campion is a rarity, not simply because she is a world-class female director, but because she has devoted her career to exploring female subjectivity.

Nov 15, 2004 — Short Cuts is an L.A. jazz rhapsody that represents Robert Altman at an all-time personal peak—and it came at just the right time in his career.

Apr 19, 2004 — “Floating weeds, drifting down the leisurely river of our lives,” has long been a favored metaphor in Japanese prose and poetry. This plant, the ukigusa (duckweed in English), floating aimlessly, carried by stronger currents, is seen as emblematic of our...

Sep 29, 2003 — Roman Polanski’s maiden feature would define his maverick status once and for all.

Aug 19, 2002 — René Clair’s musical comedy comprises a window on a particular lost black and white neverworld—bouncy with melody, soaked in spring light, wistful about the conflicted relationship between serendipity and love.

Nov 19, 2001 — Alfred Hitchcock’s first film in Hollywood is his earliest definitive statement on male domination and female subjugation.